BACKGROUND

A segment of children and adolescents with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) develops pneumonia and published evidence regarding its prognostic factors in this specific population is scarce.

OBJECTIVE

To characterize the survival of children and adolescents hospitalized for pneumonia related to COVID-19, as well as to evaluate prognostic factors for disease's outcomes.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

A cohort study was performed in Mexico and data from hospitalized children and adolescents with COVID-19 related pneumonia were analyzed. We used the Kaplan-Meier method to estimate survival functions and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI), as well as Cox proportional-hazards regressions to evaluate the association of the evaluated exposures with the outcomes of disease.

RESULTS

A total of 1423 patients were recruited for a follow-up of 15,188 person-days and the overall rate of in-hospital mortality (n = 208) was 13.7 per 1000 person-days. The survival function was 96.5% (95% CI 95.2-97.4%) and 69.3% (95% CI 63.9-74.0) of hospital stay, respectively. In multiple analysis, the history of immunosuppression was associated with an increased risk of a fatal outcome (hazard ratio [HR] = 2.70, IC 95% 1.38-5.30).

CONCLUSIONS

We characterized the survival of a large cohort of children and adolescents with COVID-19 related pneumonia. The presented findings suggest that minors with a history of immunosuppression and pneumonia have an increased risk of fatal outcome.